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Start with the exam rather than the tutor. The qualification, the exam board and the date decide what help is useful, and a tutor who has sat or taught that paper needs less time to find their feet. Then check the basics, such as a criminal record check and where they studied, and use a free introduction to see how they would work with your child before paying for anything.
Before contacting anybody, find out the qualification, the exam board and roughly when the exam is. GCSE Maths with AQA next June is a different job from the 11+ this autumn, and a tutor can only say how they would help once they know which it is. If you do not know what is going wrong yet, say so; that is what an introduction is for.
A first message can be three sentences: what your child is studying, when the exam is and what seems to be going wrong. Leave out phone numbers, email addresses and where you live, because everything stays on the platform so there is a record.
A profile shows the subjects, levels and exam boards a tutor teaches, their rate, where they studied and what, and reviews from people who have had a lesson with them. Star ratings and review counts are worked out by us from real lessons and real reviews, and a tutor cannot type them in or edit them. A new tutor may have no reviews yet, which tells you nothing either way.
The free introduction lasts 15 minutes, so it helps to go in with a few questions. A good tutor should be comfortable with all of these.
Lessons go further when the time between them has a shape. cookie, the study app that comes with Cookie Tutoring, makes a free revision plan at cookie.education/revision-plan from the exams your child is sitting. It spreads past papers back from each exam date, gives each one its full time allowed and puts breaks in, and a sooner exam gets more of the time.
Signed in with the same account as the lessons, the plan adds your child’s flashcards and practice questions, moves revision out of the way when a lesson is booked, and puts plan and lessons in one calendar they can add to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook.
Your child can also have the AI plan it from their own account, using how they are doing in each topic, which uses credits.
Be wary of a tutor who promises a grade, asks to be paid directly, or wants to move the conversation to WhatsApp or a personal email. Nobody can promise a grade honestly, and on this platform the other two are against the rules and worth reporting. Pressure to book a long block before your child has had a single lesson is another reason to look elsewhere.
The checks we make before a tutor is listed, and what each one does not tell you, are on the page about DBS-checked tutors. They cover the part a parent cannot easily check alone, and leave you the part only you can judge, which is whether this person suits your child.
Not necessarily. A qualified teacher knows the curriculum and the classroom well, and a university student who sat the same exam recently can be just as useful for a particular paper. What matters more is whether they can explain your child’s subject clearly, which the introduction lets you see.
It depends on the gap and the time left. One lesson a week per subject is a common pattern, sometimes two in the term before an exam, and a tutor should be able to say after the first few lessons what they think is realistic.
Yes, at any time and without saying why. There is no minimum commitment, and if you cancel a block, the lessons in it that have not happened yet are refunded.
Both of you, ideally. Your child has to want to talk to this person every week, so their view of the introduction counts for a lot. Under 16 you do the booking and paying; from 16 they can book their own.
Every tutor offers a free 15-minute introduction with no card needed, so you and your child can meet one before paying for anything.
How we keep students safe, written for parents
cookie, which we also build, has free guides and tools for parents, including past papers, grade boundaries, exam timetables, a revision plan that fits around lessons and guides to applying to university. Free tools for parents on cookie